"I believe in my heart, I would have worked for an asshole"

The No Asshole Rule emphasizes that one of the best ways to avoid the negative effects of workplaces that will leave you feeling demeaned and de-energized is to carefully assess your boss and colleagues during the interview and recruitment process. Guy Kawasaki and I had fun with this challenge a few years back when we developed a list of 10 signs that your future boss is likely to be a bosshole. In this spirit, I got a remarkable note the other day from a fellow who used his job interview to determine that his future boss was likely to be an asshole. Note the often subtle signs he observed. This are his exact words, I just removed a couple key sentences (with his permission) to protect his identity:

Dr. Sutton,

Just wanted to thank you. I read your "no Asshole rule" book on the plane my way to an interview. I suspected from our initial phone interview that he could be a jerk. I decided to take a new approach to the interview...to see how he interacted with shop floor employees and people that worked directly for him, to see how he spoke to me, and his verbal and visual actions, to see if I wanted this position instead of trying to impress them so they want to hire me. I watched people that worked for him stand away from him when talking to him. I saw he never smiled, and no one smiled at him. He passed people on the line without so much as a nod to them. And to top it off, he cut me off TWICE when I was talking like I wasn't even speaking, and then once even rudely didn't even PRETEND to listen to me as I talked about my background. In fact, I believe he started looking around and saying "uh huh, uh huh, uh huh" rudely "rushing me along" about 15 seconds into my background discussion. To top it off, I remember you saying "assholes hire assholes", so I asked him if he had recommended the hiring of the people on his current team, and he boldly bragged "I hire EVERYONE on my team, it is all MY decision"...so I turned down the offer. I believe in my heart, I would have worked for an asshole. . And life is too short to do that again.

I find this guy to be very astute. What do you think of his analysis?

What are other signs that you look for that a future boss -- or colleague --is likely to be a certified asshole?

Comments

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Great letter. I like how the author paid attention to those little details that we often dismiss as unimportant. But isn't it the small things that point to larger values?

So it really does come down to Kelley's point about trusting our instincts. Scott Sinek in his book Start with Why says that we've been trained to ignore our gut feelings when, in reality, they are a source of invaluable input during the decision making process. If you get the feeling that someone's an asshole, chances are you're right.

Dr. Sutton, I have recently read both books about bosses and as I'm currently looking for a new position I am going to use the 10 questions as I interview any future employer better than I have in the past. I've also learner how to be a better boss next time. Thank you for the continued work.

I think your email correspondent's analysis is very astute. I think we know when other people are assholes. I think that we have an instinct for when we are being disrespected, dismissed, marginalized, undermined....

The question is, are we willing to trust our own instincts? There's a marvelous book on this called THE GIFT OF FEAR by Gavin DeBecker, specifically about women (usually) trusting their instincts in physically or sexually threatening situations. Emotional and psychological situations are no different -- and we should trust our instincts there, too.

Instinct is primarily a result of internalized social and hardwired biological cues: we *know* when something doesn't feel right. Trusting those instincts may be inconvenient (in terms of immediate payoffs like 'I got a job') but they are almost always, in my experience, better for us in the long term.

I just declined to continue working with a client that I thought was an asshole. I regret the money, but you know what? I feel a lot better about the whole rest of my life because I'm not twisted up about my work. I know I made the right choice.

The best sign that an interviewer is an asshole is that the interview is more about them than you, and that (conversely) they don't actually answer any questions that you ask. Lethal combination. It means that on every level, they are not listening.

Another sure test is an interviewer that starts tapping away on their mobile phone when the person being interviewed starts talking. I was asked to be the second half of an interview panel for a client, where the other person I was interviewing with did this - I could not believe my eyes!